Sarah Springman

Born in 1956 in London, Springman was educated at Wycombe Abbey, where she was later a governor from 1993 to 1996.[1][2] She studied engineering sciences at Cambridge University (Bachelor level) from 1975 to 1978[3] and returned for a MPhil in soil mechanics in 1983 and carried on her doctoral research in soil-structure interaction, earning her doctorate between 1984 to 1989. She worked as an engineer on geotechnical projects in England, Australia and Fiji (primarily on the Monasavu Dam in Viti Levu), from 1979 to 1983 and became a chartered engineer and Member of the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1983.[4]

In addition to being a civil engineer, she represented Great Britain at the elite level in triathlon from 1983 to 1993, competing in the 1990 Commonwealth Games Triathlon in Auckland, New Zealand and winning twenty elite European Triathlon Union (ETU) Championship medals in triathlon and duathlon.[5] Springman served as Vice-President of the International Triathlon Union (ITU) from 1992 to 1996, during which time, she played an important role in getting triathlon into the Olympics. She stepped down as President of British Triathlon on 31 December 2012 after celebrating Team GB's first triathlon medals won at an Olympic Games and was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Sunday Times and Sky Sports Sportswomen of the Year Awards in London in 2013.[6] She has again served as ITU's Vice-President since 2008 and is a member of the International Olympic Committee's Sustainability and Legacy Commission. On 18 August 2016, she was chosen as a presentation official at the Olympic triathlon medal ceremony, at which brothers Alistair and Jonathan Brownlee received gold and silver medals for Team GB in Rio de Janeiro.[7][8] The International Triathlon Union named her to their Hall of Fame in 2019.[9]

Springman has been professor of geotechnical engineering at ETH Zürich since 1997, and the Deputy Head of the Institute for Geotechnical Engineering since 2007.[1][3] She became Rector of ETH Zürich on 1 January 2015.[10]

The emphasis of Springman's research is on geotechnical modelling of soil structure interaction problems. Including design and construction of abutments, pile foundations, reinforced soil and oil drilling structures, Springman combines physical modelling in a geotechnical centrifuge with numerical modelling so that the data may be used to develop, calibrate or validate new design methods. At ETH Zürich her group uses a 2.2-metre (7 ft) drum geotechnical centrifuge to carry out practical studies on a range of geotechnical problems.[3]

Springman advocates for access for women to STEM / MINT studies and engages in many events and campaigns to support this.[11]

• 1997: Appointed OBE
• 2000–2008: Member of Schweizerischer Wissenschafts- und Technologierat and ETH Planungskommission.[10]
• 2009: Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering
• 2012: Commander CBE of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire.[12][10]
• 2013: Lifetime Achievement Award at the Sunday Times and Sky Sports Sportswomen of the Year Awards[6]

• Physical Modelling in Geotechnics (Proc. 7th Int. Conference, ICPMG, Zürich), CRC Press 2010, ISBN .
• P. W. Mayne, M. R. Coop, Sarah Springman, A. B. Huang, J. Zornberg State of the Art Paper: GeoMaterial Behavior and Testing, Proc. 17. ICSMGE, Volume 4, Mill Press/IOS Press, Rotterdam 2009, ISBN .
• Sarah Springman, Phillips, Arenson: Permafrost, Swets und Zeitlinger 2003, ISBN .
• Constitutive and Centrifuge Modelling – two Extremes, Taylor and Francis 2002, ISBN .

• Sarah Springman profile at the website of ETH Zurich